Drone Control via Alexa - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rushilgupta/dronecontrol <comment><USER2> Very cool! If you want to do this in a 100% on-device and private-by-design way, you can take a look at what we are building at [https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai) (disclaimer: I'm a co-founder)

Someone actually already did a Voice controlled drone with the platform [https://github.com/trancept/snips_bebop/](https://github.com/trancept/snips_bebop/) :)

It runs on a Raspberry Pi 3, or any Linux, osX, iOS, Android device, and it works in English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, and more coming soon!

We'd love to show what you are building on our blog if you want to use it :)

<comment><USER3> Second the recommendation for Snips. I recently built a Snips-based voice assistant for hands-free oscilloscope control ([https://github.com/jmwilson/ollie](https://github.com/jmwilson/ollie)), and snips is a much better fit for this kind of domain-specific, field-deployable (offline) voice assistant.

Consider the whole of infrastructure required for this application. The Pi sends a request to Alexa, which sends a request to a lambda server, which sends a request to SQS, which is polled by the Pi. Each of those AWS servers has possible subsystems and some load balancer in front of it. Single device, offline processing is so much cleaner when there's no need for general connectivity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! My implementation is meant for remote voice control of drone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did something similar about six years ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBa11gdbeU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBa11gdbeU)

I used a (Python) natural language parser of my own creation (this was before intent classification was a big thing), Nuance speech recognition, and a javascript (node) interface to the AR.Drone.

<comment><USER5> Haha- the drone not landing when you told it to is basically the beginning of every sci-fi movie where the robots turn on the people.

Great job.

<comment><AUTHOR> TODO: add a kill switch :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I also did this a few years ago - voice controlled drone, had some keyboard based kill switches, unfortunately the drone is quite noisy so had to talk quite loudly to get a decent STT translation.

<comment><AUTHOR> This setup just requires raspberry-pi to be in the vicinity of drone. Voice command can be provided remotely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Deja vu -- a group of friends and I tried out something similar at a hackathon a while back, and it ended up pretty decent

[https://devpost.com/software/recon-4dg8qz](https://devpost.com/software/recon-4dg8qz)

</comment><comment><USER8> That's pretty cool, though, knowing me and Alexa I will send that drone to the first wall or tree around me lol.

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems oh-so-dangerous given the current state of NLP, but very cool project! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I saw the fear in my Director's eyes while showcasing when the drone was hovering ~3 feet away.

<comment><USER10> Not bad! Be interesting to include this tech into a FPV drone headset which could yield serviceable complete heads-up control for area sightseeing. BTW hope you turned off the projected sniper's reticle during the demo as this does tend to elicit angst in the observers - sorry :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Alexa, search and destroy"

</comment><comment><USER12> this is a crash waiting to happen</comment>


My favorite keyboard shortcut is command + w - <AUTHOR>

I love to close tabs that way.<p>What's your favorite? <comment><USER2> Somewhat related: It irks me how the Quit shortcut (Command + Q) is so close to Close shortcut (Command + W). I've accidentally shut my browser down and lost all of my browser-based work more than once by hitting Q instead of W.

A solution for anyone else who's interested: remap the two shortcuts; details here -> <http://simonwillison.net/2004/Jun/8/remappingShortcuts/>

<comment><USER3> That article about remapping shortcuts in OS X is nice. Sadly, it was written a while ago, and, while the method in it _does_ allow me to add a new shortcut in Snow Leopard[1], it apparently does not deactivate the old one. Thus, my newly created shortcut quits Firefox; but so does command-Q. :-(

[1] In the instructions in the article, replace "Keyboard & Mouse" with "Keyboard". Otherwise, follow the instructions exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> CTRL+T for new Chrome tab, CTRL+Tab to cycle tabs (or CTRL+1, ... 9)

Windows D for desktop, Windows E for explorer, CTRL+R for Run (especially in Windows Vista/7).

</comment><comment><USER5> alt-enter to open urls in a new tab.</comment>


Ask HN: Slack alternative with native clients - <AUTHOR> Quite some time ago, someone on HN mentioned a group chat app (like Slack) that comes with truly native clients for all supported platforms. I tried to search for HN that comment but found nothing. Was it just my imagination?<p>P.S. By "native" I mean Cocoa on Mac, etc. Not a web page packaged in an app, i.e. no Electron and similar. <comment><USER2> Atlassian has a new app [https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/07/atlassian-launches- stride-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/07/atlassian-launches-stride-its- slack-competitor/)

By the way, what's wrong with electron or similar wrappers? Size? Performance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Non-standard UI, general slowness, energy consumption, glitches, missing standard keyboard shortcuts, etc. The list goes on and on. It's a lowest common denominator, doesn't use what Cocoa/Mac has to offer. TL;DR Poor usability.

<comment><USER2> Yeah it's a tradeoff. It's a cost-effective way for a small startup to get a Mac, Windows, and Linux version in the hands of users quickly. If they get adoption and money, it would be a good idea to then do native versions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We use hipchat by atlassian and it seems to do a pretty decent job

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe it was gitter? it was boughtby gitlab and opensourced iirc

<comment><AUTHOR> Just tried it. The "app" is just a single giant web view.</comment></comment>


Authenticated TLS "contraints" in ntpd(8) - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=142356166731390&w=2 <comment><USER2> This is very similar to the functionality provided by tlsdate ([https://github.com/ioerror/tlsdate](https://github.com/ioerror/tlsdate)). They appear to have eschewed tlsdate's default approach of using the timestamp from the handshake in favor of using the `Date:` field, which tlsdate also supports. It would be interesting to see whether the randomization of TLS timestamps in modern implementations of TLS might mean that tlsdate's default mode is no longer useful. Either way, it's really cool to see this sort of functionality being included in ntpd by default!

<comment><USER3> openntpd has been nothing but trouble for me, but when I switched to djb clockspeed instead, it made things better. Here's a script that runs on GFiber devices, which uses tlsdate securely for the initial timewarp, and djb clockspeed thereafter. Since switching to this we have had extremely accurate timekeeping.

[https://gfiber.googlesource.com/buildroot/+/master/fs/skelet...](https://gfiber.googlesource.com/buildroot/+/master/fs/skeleton/bin/run- tlsdate)

<comment><USER4> Which version were you using? If you were using the portable version, I heard openntpd-portable wasn't updated for quite a while, and fell behind...missing out on some really big improvements from more recent versions.

The portable tree has apparently recently been picked up again by a new maintainer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That is a really wonderful extension to ntpd. Simple, robust, with the server implementation for "free".

</comment><comment><USER6> typo in submission title

<comment><USER7> typo in mail subject</comment></comment>


Please review this Software startup. Better touchpad gestures - <AUTHOR> http://www.handstalk.in/products.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Since HN only allows 80 letters in title.

* Windows only, downloadable only

* Pre revenue, just launched.

* My Friend's startup</comment>


Ask HN: Idea on hacking motivation to be more active and healthy; thoughts? - <AUTHOR> So you've purchased the latest activity tracker: fitbit, garmin, apple watch, etc. Your activity is being tracked automatically. You get to see your friend's activity and compete with them. However you still need more motivation when it comes to being active and healthy.
My name is Jared Collett founder of an app called Better Habits (iOS) and myself and others I know personally feel this way. I'm setting out to try and understand just just how many others feel this way as well.
In order to present a respectable solution, I need more data. With the help of some friends, this is what I've come up with so far. I'd like you to tear it apart, rebuild it, add to it, express your unfiltered thoughts on how you would solve this problem.
Basic workflow, outlined in graphic flowchart below :
1. User set an activity goal: close all rings 5 days a week 2. User sets stake: $5 for every day they fail their goal 3. User activity is automatically tracked with activity tracker; Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Watch, etc. 4. If user fails to complete goal, their stake goes into community pot 5. Other users compete over money in the pot to send it to the charity of their choice by being active 6. App takes 20% of stakes to maintain and improve system.
Think StickK, Beeminder, Pact: Updated, easy, and automatically tracked
Flowchart graphic: http://imgur.com/a/CNDKv <comment><USER2> Big fan of innovation in this space, so glad you're working on this. I remember coming across Beeminder some time ago, and liking the idea, but not actually pulling the trigger on trying it out. I wonder if it has to do with some cognitive dissonance around the financial commitment device. We want to think of ourselves as having some semblance of self-control & an ability to stick to previously defined goals, but opting in to a system that punishes you for failure forces you to come to terms with the fact that you don't in fact trust yourself.

I have no doubt this works for some people, but there's something missing for me. Maybe it's just that I prefer positive reinforcement.

Out of curiosity, how will you differentiate from Beeminder? Is it the social pot that you suspect makes this dynamic more powerful?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for taking the time to check this out and give your thoughts. I completely agree with you that in general we want to think of ourselves as having self-control, and in a lot of aspects we do, some of us more than others. It's kind of like the 'place something on top of my keys the night before so I don't forget it' approach. In the evening, this would be easy to remember, I am sharp and aware, but in the morning, I know from past experiences that I'm not as sharp and need a little help. What I want now, vs what I want later.

I think both positive and negative reinforcement are effective. It obviously depends on the person, situation and other factors. My thought with this idea is that the positive re-inforcement aspect of activity when it comes to activity monitors is already being tackled by the big companies, fitbit, garmin, apple health, google fit, etc. However on the 'penance' side of things, it's underrepresented and the options are far from streamlined and easy imho.

My opinion on Beeminder is that it's designed for highly-technical people. The idea would be to present a solution that is similar to Beeminder that anybody can easily understand and use. There are also other highly motivating aspects that beeminder doesn't use such as social accountability (fitbit), charities (StickK and many others), and competition (fitbit, apple, etc.).

Thanks again for the thoughts and inquiry, I'd love to keep the convo going. My current goal is to flesh out any lingering thoughts on how the idea could be improved so that I can create more of a polished model to present to the public and gage interest.

<comment><USER3> As a cofounder of Beeminder, this makes tons of sense to me! Plenty of room for a less nerd-focused take on this (we're heaving on the Quantified Self side) and other forms of motivation hacking besides commitment contracts based on graphs.

I should mention that we do have a partial charity option in our fancypants premium plan: [http://blog.beeminder.com/infinibee](http://blog.beeminder.com/infinibee) (Beemium plan, $32/mo)

And we have a _tiny_ bit of social accountability with this feature: [http://blog.beeminder.com/supporters](http://blog.beeminder.com/supporters)

Btw, I'm not sure about your term "penance" here. I mean, I see how you're using it for monetary commitment contracts, I'm just not sure I agree with the term. To me it implies assuaging guilt after the fact. I think commitment contracts are all about shaping incentives before-the-fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like it and would use it today, although I prefer phone/accelerometer tracking over wearable tracking. It's more accurate, cheaper, and easier to use.

Also, I don't use Apple products and likely never will. It'd be nice if you started out with a cross-platform framework (React Native, Haxe, NativeScript, Appcelerator -- _something_ has to appeal to you) to provide early support for both iOS and Android. As a developer, I'm less and less convinced that Android support is "too expensive" to deliver immediately or early.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response smt88. The idea would be to use anything that Google Fit tracks so that would include any kind of phone/accelerometer tracking where the data feeds into Google Fit.

Also thanks for the feedback on cross-platform support. Unless the interest in very lopsided toward one platform, the plan will be to roll out on both Android and iOS.

I've love to get your thoughts further on a few things.

1\. The bare bones MVP would just be a system that takes your money when you fail to perform. 100% of the money would go to the app. This would cut out the need to build a social network which would cut down the initial production substantially. What would you think about a product like that?

Bare bones example : [http://imgur.com/a/H520t](http://imgur.com/a/H520t)

2\. On the other side of things, adding more complexity, it's been mentioned to add 'factions' such as Yankees vs Red Sox. The initial user would set up an anti-charity, fail to perform, put money in pot, can continue to be active to rescue some of the money, but there are other players being active to send the money to their team.

more complex example : [http://imgur.com/a/Ixc3u](http://imgur.com/a/Ixc3u)

Just curious to hear your thoughts on either of these or any other scenarios where you think it would enhance motivation.

Thanks so much, cheers!

<comment><USER4> 1\. I'd use it. Does it exist already though? The concept sounds familiar.

2\. This is a little harder for me to endorse. Here are some ways I can see it being implemented:

a) Factions aren't tied to a charity. They're competing for the money, and then they get to vote on the charity at the end of the competition period. As a competitor, I'm not trying to take money away from ACLU (or any other charity). I'm trying to take it away from the Red Sox.

b) Factions _are_ tied to a charity, and both charities are positive (e.g. one supporting cancer research, one supporting HIV research). This is OK I guess, but if the money is going to a great cause either way, I might feel guilty for trying to hoard it for my faction.

c) Factions are tied to a charity, and I hate one of the charities (e.g. my faction supports cancer research, the other faction supports the NRA). This is bad. Don't do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the extra input. The concept sort of exists, but is not easy to understand or is accessible for most people imho. The closest app was Pact in 2012-14, which had huge success, but now appears to be abandoned.

This is really great input. I agree that the charities would have to be delicately balanced in order to be motivating and tasteful at the same time. There are a lot of ways it could go wrong.

What would you think about, instead of the charities having the money go into a bank that you could earn back over time. Say after a month you've paid $50 in penalties, each time you're active you earn a portion of that back. Also, let's say there's attrition on the funds over time, you only have so much time to earn the money back before it's gone for good? This is a 4th option that's been coming up after talking to others.

p.s. another thought could be that your friends can steal your bucks if they're hitting more of their goals than you?

<comment><USER3> Super exciting to see your thinking and progress on this! Let me know when you're ready to be added to [http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors](http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors)

And here are our thoughts on charities: [http://blog.beeminder.com/anticharity](http://blog.beeminder.com/anticharity)

Oh yeah, and we have some very old thoughts on Pact (originally GymPact) and the idea of the winners paying the losers here: [https://blog.beeminder.com/gympact/](https://blog.beeminder.com/gympact/)

Tons of room for competitors doing commitment devices and other motivation hacking. I chuckled/winced at "Beeminder but for less highly technical people" \-- we'll get there! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mr. Reeves! Holy sh*t, I'm honored! I hope I didn't come down too hard on Beeminder, I certainly didn't mean to. I honestly think you guys are one of the only companies with the balls to do penance right. Imho I really don't think the majority of people understand just how powerful it can be.

On another note, so much of my research that has gone into this has come from your site. You guys are an amazing example of brave transparency. What you guys have shared publicly has been incredibly helpful to me while trying to posture with a way to innovation in this space. So thank you so much for that!

I appreciate you chiming in here as well and the resources you shared. I'd love to run other ideas in this space past you as I'm sure you have more experience than just about anyone.

Lastly I'd also love to pick your brain on Pact, I'm curious if you have any insight into what happened? It seems like it's been abandoned, but it still has a ton of users that want to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> May be interesting to add different competition modes.

One of which could be a one time group competition.

For example, an office competition, a goal is set by the competition owner, they set the prize amount, % that goes to charity, % that goes to the winner.

They invite the participants and set the duration of the event.

Lots of companies have programs as part of their benefits to encourage exercise, etc. You could partner with benefits companies to set up the competitions for their clients.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for taking the time to read and respond. I think this is a great idea. I just got feedback yesterday from a girl who said fitbit itself wasn't motivating, but the 'Workweek hustle' with her co-workers was crazy motivating. So yeah, imagine that with money on the line. Or within companies, it could be time-off or other sought-after/dreaded things.

This idea also opens up the doors to a B2B sales model which we all know is a completely different experience from B2C when bootstrapping.

Thanks again, if anything else comes to mind, I'd love to hear it</comment></comment>


Venkatesh Rao's Breaking Smart (Season 1) in .mobi Format - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2xCNu4te78qX2E0NC1Kdk0zMUk/view?usp=sharing

<comment><AUTHOR> For those of you who like his writings, I've put together a .mobi file with all the essays of Breaking Smart's Season 1. It's an amazing collection of words, that should help and inspire us technology makers.</comment>


Ask HN: Why would you choose a certified self-taught candidate over a graduated? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Having a degree in computer science does not necessarily mean someone can program, so you have to test their skills. Being self taught does not necessarily imply someone is better, but it might imply their interest took hold at an age where being taught to program was less of an option. These days kids are learning to program to a degree, but even someone in their 20s now is less likely to have been programming as a child. So someone who has been programming since childhood, but didn't have a degree, might (or, maybe likely is?) a better programmer than someone with a computer science degree and little to no experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point of view, but is it only related to the Computer Science Engineering field?

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily, but Computer Science is one of those fields that you can easily be self taught without many physical resources. In fact you mostly only need a computer and the internet, which most people do have.

It's different from a kid learning to become a mechanic. They'd need far more resources for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good developers are self learners (autodidactics). You don't get to be good by skating by on whatever you learned in school - you need to be continually learning.

I have a degree but I taught myself after my first programming class. My wife's dad got her started on a little computer and she took it from there.

Certifications in programming seem like a way to separate people from their money. It might even mark you as an amateur as I've never met a real developer (to my knowledge) with a certificate with the exception one software P.E. [1]

[1] P.E. = professional engineer. [https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe- software-engineerin...](https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software- engineering-exam/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Certifications are pretty useless. But self-taught developers are awesome (if they have some evidence that they're capable; past projects are a good indicator). They're typically self-motivated and fast learners, which are great qualities in an employee.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would chose the person who convinced me they were most talented / qualified. How they got their education and what pieces of paper they have is mostly irrelevant.

Having a degree is a signal, of something, but I'd argue that it's a pretty weak signal of "is competent at programming". Likewise for industry certifications... they _are_ a signal, but a weak signal.

Note also that this whole setup is a false dichotomy... plenty of programmers are a mix of college educated _and_ self-taught, and may also have one or more industry certifications.

Looking at myself as an example... I have three college degrees (although I never finished my C.S. bachelors), but I consider myself more self-taught than formally educated. I also have 2 of the old Sun era Java certifications. And I have found that this sort of combination isn't uncommon. _shrug_

</comment><comment><USER7> I care about people who can get the job done. Having a degree doesn't prove to me that you can. Showing me a catalogue of open-source contributions is a much more powerful suggestion that you can work on software and document it for others for consumption.

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a hybrid response here. Those who are self-taught may not be aware of various algorithms or techniques for handling certain scenarios.

Self taught may have fundamental skill sets, but there is benefit in having some sort of educational background which introduces one to some of the more complicated aspects of application design and implementation.

It is that, or being a voracious reader of technical books and being a conference goer, ... ie, basically somehow being able to keep track of and understand the goings-on of current paradigms.

</comment><comment><USER9> self-taught candidates are typically self-motivated and have strong interests, graduates may have those qualities as well, or they may have had it beat out of them in the course of their studies

</comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't.</comment>


A Diatribe on Maintaining State - <AUTHOR> http://blog.voxdolo.me/a-diatribe-on-maintaining-state.html

<comment><USER2> This article uses the phrase "maintaining state", but it's really talking about controlling the visibility of instance variables, and on a higher level using interfaces to provide loosely-coupled contracts for the behavior of classes. Using the same ideas within classes to "shield" instance variables from internal code is a good practice.

While the examples are in Ruby, this is the kind of design philosophy that is typically applied to Java development. Perhaps there's some hope for Ruby after all. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> A rather long post but the subject is spot on! I totally agree.

<comment><USER4> The soul of brevity, I am not ;) Glad you enjoyed it though.</comment></comment>


My Grandfather Thought He Solved a Cosmic Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/science-full-mavericks-like-my-grandfather-was-his-physics-theory-right/574573/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> I certainly understand the harsh reality of seeing a glimpse of a solution and finding no logical path there.

For me, it's factoring large numbers in short times. I've spent 18 years on and off of the problem. Most of that time was coming up with novel ideas and then arriving at the same conclusions as everybody else.

I'm too obstinate and "stupid" to know that the problem is practically unsolvable - but fortunately I'm not obsessive enough to throw my life into it. It's basically a hobby I do during my downtime.

I like to call it mathematical finger painting, or nature walks through obscure numeric systems. Studying topics, geometries, ancient multiplication methods for fun, and generally scratching under the surface of "why" without knowing how.

<comment><USER4> I registered an account just to reply to your comment.

After reading the article in question, I was thinking about my own experience. I too have been working on prime factorization for the past 6 years in the same fashion that you have and what you just wrote here describe perfectly how I feel about my progress and journey. Which makes me wonder... How many people out there are like us, working on the same problem while feeling the same way?

It's like the problem is laughing at you. Baiting you back in with its extreme simplicity. It truly is a mesmerizing problem that you can't help but feel is solvable if only one single Eureka moment is reached. Boy do I want this one solved...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I'm not even close!! More like the movie Groundhog Day.

So far the journey has been really rewarding though. I've recently been focusing my efforts on remainders and decision paths.

The most invaluable lessons learned have been my understanding of the complexity of simplicity.

I've written some insanely complicated, convoluted and frankly weird ass code throughout all this.

For example: bignum math libraries, modified Euclidean geometry, imaginary number libs, fractal factoring, Russian peasant multiplication, 3D volumetric fluids to triangle area fitting. Multiple geometric shape fitting libraries, Gallois fields and lots and lots of weird what-if code that popped up in my head.

I'd always been good at algorithms, but straightforward head-first attacks of the problem always ends in failure.

Now I've learned to build analysis, statistics and proofs by necessity. It's completely changed my mindset on design. (Obviously I studied far my comp-sci than mathematics.)

Other than sieving and brute force, I think the only other general solution to be a sort of 'halving' problem.

The relation between factors and q is essential sum or area. You can subdivide either into n buckets and remainders building a tree of nodes iteratively. At many nodes I have found some interesting patterns. I find nodes after some iterations that sum up to a factor. So now my question is finding the path every time.

Anyway, best of luck on your journey and enjoy the ride! Maybe in another few years somebody will finally slay this beast.

<comment><USER5> Also not the same problem, but I've been doing the same with the Traveling Salesman Problem for about 8 years now. It's a love hate play date every Sunday morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In high school my friend's Dad thought he had found a flaw in modern Physics understanding that would change everything. Physicists, he claimed, refused to see the truth because they were too loyal to Einstein. He sat me down and showed me flaws in a bunch of equations, which was duly impressive until I went to college and took Physics 101. Turns out he was ignoring things like redshift of light; when I plugged in the right equations the classical model held.

I tried to argue with my friend, but I had just proved that I was brainwashed by Big Phys. I learned that his Dad cornered anybody he could to evangelize his theories and had been doing so for years. He developed a theory that women and children were more receptive to his revolutionary ideas, so was in the process of writing a book that was more conversational in tone.

Last I heard he was still at it.

<comment><USER7> it's sad that he tries to validate his idea by evangelizing to laymen instead of trying to convince "big science" of his ideas.

My dad was and is the same way -- everyone is in some massive conspiracy plot to misguide the public. Typically there are demons or other some suches that are pulling the puppet strings. A few months ago he was convinced the world was flat.. It's this whole Dunning-Kruger effect that seems to affect so many people.

I think there are generations of people who missed out on a proper education and a healthy skepticism.

<comment><USER8> "I think there are generations of people who missed out on a proper education and a healthy skepticism. "

I don't think it's education. Most conspiracy theorists I have met seem to have a deep discomfort with our world and this is their way of explaining it. I think other people turn to religion for the same reasons.

<comment><USER9> I'm going to inject some cynicism and say that what a number of them find unsettling is how famous they _aren 't_.

They always think they have a big idea. It's never some minor correction to a big theory, which a PhD would be happy with (as long as it's major enough to be publishable); no, it's Shatter The Foundations or nothing. Therefore, they're being done out of their fame and fortune by some grand conspiracy, which, in itself, proves how important they are: If they weren't right, They wouldn't be conspiring against them, now, would they? That mindset certainly sells books, and helps on the lecture circuit, too.

I'm sure there are some honest crackpots, but I wonder how honest you can be when you come upon a bit of well-accepted physics you can't understand or simply don't like, and conclude that _everyone else_ is wrong, and _you 're_ the only one who's correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can go astray without really becoming a crank. A true crank that can't let the crankery go develops delusions of persecution and conspiracy to keep the truth out.

Going astray may be as simple as not being able to provide the necessary clarity, the clear road map that leads from what is familiar, to those in the field, to the novel thing you are proposing.

I am talking of course of heavily mathematical fields. Not going to comment on the murkier situation outside of that.

<comment><USER11> The article wonders (in the 5th-to-last paragraph) if a different kind of rejection might help reduce the number of people who turn into cranks. Sometimes they have an idea and it seems like they can't communicate it, so maybe just saying "I understand your point even if I think it's wrong" could help.

<comment><USER12> Good point. In my experience, when communicating ideas, it helps to separate the nuances of "I hear/understand you" and "I agree with you". For novel ideas, it takes a significant amount of time after you understand it, to decide on it. In the mean time it is important to suspend judgement while exploring the idea and its consequences. Most people genuinely interested in ideas want to make sure their thoughts have been understood, and will happily receive a critique if it comes to be. Seeing acknowledgment that they've been understood allows them to relax and start listening. OTOH, being repeatedly dismissed without being understood leads them to feel persecuted for novelty.

Listening is an art.

<comment><USER13> You're absolutely right! People genuinely interested solely ideas will be satisfied to be understood and accept any reasonable critique that comes in response.

One of the human failure modes that I witness on a regular basis is that people fail to separate "I hear/understand you" and "I agree with you" within their own heads. People have a tendency to assume that what they find convincing will be similarly convincing to another. As a result, if it's not convincing to another, this other person must not understand it properly and must just need to be educated on the subject. Or, more cynically, they aren't paying attention because they don't understand the importance of the work.

My current operating hypothesis is that vanishingly few people are genuinely interested solely in ideas. Almost everyone has some ego at stake. Being told that your baby is ugly, no matter how kindly, compassionately, or empathetically it is done, is rarely a positive experience. This is where people like Dale Carnegie come in.

Beyond the emotional aspects of it, there are other issues. It can be _incredibly_ labor-intensive to delve deeply into a paper and determine how right or wrong it is. If it's wrong, it's even more work to understand precisely where and how it is wrong, and then give the kind of feedback a hypothetical egoless author genuinely interested solely in ideas would like. This can be a great deal to ask, unpaid, of people who have other things they would like to be doing. This is doubly true when most papers are patently wrong in some obvious way and the painstakingly handcrafted feedback unlikely to be taken up in the manner an idealist could hope for. I'm sure you have a way to handle this with the art of listening, and I'm just not seeing it. Can you help me understand?

Again, you're completely right. It can definitely help to separate the ideas of understanding and agreement, and reasonable people interested in ideas will handle this gracefully! There just might be some room for nuance and perhaps a careful consideration of costs and burdens might be in order.

<comment><USER12> > if it's not convincing to another, this other person must not understand it > properly and must just need to be educated on the subject. Or, more > cynically, they aren't paying attention because they don't understand the > importance of the work.

Here's a thumb rule I try to follow: Before having a strong opinion towards one side, one must be able to be articulate both (opposing) points of view. So, my goal in any discussion is to reach that stage -- mutually, if possible. After that point, I'm willing to trust reasonable people to exercise independent judgement. At least we can get a shared understanding of which differing assumptions lead us to different conclusions, and see whether there are any tests which will help us validate those assumptions.

> Almost everyone has some ego at stake.

Aye, we're all humans! All we can do is strive to be a little better each day :-) The same with regards to listening to someone -- I try to listen carefully and respond sincerely with what puzzles me. It's up to them what they wish to do with that.

> It can be incredibly labor-intensive to delve deeply into a paper and > determine how right or wrong it is. If it's wrong, it's even more work to > understand precisely where and how it is wrong, and then give the kind of > feedback a hypothetical egoless author genuinely interested solely in ideas > would like. This can be a great deal to ask, unpaid, of people who have > other things they would like to be doing.

Absolutely! I don't mean to imply that one should take every crackpot paper seriously. I guess each researcher has a circle of respected colleagues whom one can trust for a little bit of indulgence. Also, this is partly what professors are paid for -- so I would hope they're willing to spend some time with their maturing students, and their colleagues, who have proven track records as researchers.

An interesting related tidbit: Some of my physics professors were very sincere in asking eager grad students to have some humility and avoid spending much time on the murky swamp of quantum foundations (which has claimed many decades of smart researchers' lives)--and definitely not by ourselves, at least till we had a few manifestly productive years working on other things, and developed enough of a research sense to understand when to back away from unproductive lines of inquiry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good article; strikes a nice balance between a loving ode to a grandfather, and exploring how science is much more conservative than one might think.

Reminds me of this article [0], and specifically this passage, which makes the point that one metric of judging "crackpot ideas" that seem to come out of nowhere is by what they enable. Do they lead to the emergence of new results, or allow for the proof of things other than the direct thing that the theorem sets out to prove?

 _"Usually when there is a breakthrough in mathematics, there is an explosion of new activity when other mathematicians are able to exploit the new ideas to prove new theorems, usually in directions not anticipated by the original discoverer(s). This has manifestly not been the case for ABC, and this fact alone is one of the most compelling reasons why people are suspicious."_

[0] [https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the-a...](https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the- abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/)

</comment><comment><USER15> The linked article at [https://www.researchers.one/article/2018-10-6](https://www.researchers.one/article/2018-10-6) seems well-argued, nothing outlandish. It doesn't talk about anything in quantum mechanics though. I was hoping to find that somewhere.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, it doesn't seem fair to call someone a crank if they have a lucid point with a subtle, hard-to-spot flaw; such arguments are typically wrong in interesting, useful ways.

Edit: At risk of self-congratulation, that's what I feel is happening to me on HN when I try to meticulously untangle a complicated issue where I feel people are talking past each other, and then get quickly downvoted but never responded to. Case in point:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14310444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14310444)

<comment><USER17> I agree with you there, pointing out more precisely how people are talking past each other makes all sides pissed off...

<comment><USER16> Whoa, after my linking, that old comment went from -2 to -1! I thought it was way past the point that you could vote on it! (It's ~15 months old.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Oxford physicist mentioned in the article may well be Joy Christian, who has submitted numerous articles to Arxiv giving what he claims to be a violation of Bell inequalities using Clifford algebras. You can find them just by searching Arxiv for his name.

I spent some time reading these articles and the various refutations - <USER2> refutations of refutations - when I was a grad student, as I wanted to nail down where either he or Bell was fundamentally wrong. I never succeeded, but since Bell's proof was much simpler and understandable, and involved more elementary objects, and had been scrutinised for much longer without any serious flaws forthcoming, whereas Christian's proofs appeared to have some issues under debate, I came away thinking it likely that Christian was wrong.

Disappointing that I couldn't find the "central" flaw, if there was one. Sad that a talented scientist should spend so much of their career simply alienating themselves from the community in this way.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand what the paradox in the water/wine paradox is, after checking out its PDF (linked in the article, [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252476141_The_WineW...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252476141_The_WineWater_Paradox_background_provenance_and_proposed_resolutions)).

The problem is defined without giving the distribution(s). Specifying a distribution makes the problem mathematically solvable.

A uniform distribution for representing a ratio of 1/3 to 3 between two things does not match reality well because it gives more weight to one than the other, but I don't see why that's a paradox. You could generate random valid wine/water amounts (reject invalid combinations) and measure distribution of many experiments of that? You can define any distribution you want that makes more sense than those uniform ones. Ultimately though something is not specified, the distribution of the water amount and the distribution of the wine amount. Why is that a paradox?

EDIT: the real question is how was the jug filled up. Did someone pour a random amount of water first, and then after that poured a random amount of wine within the allowable limit? Or did they pour the wine first instead? Or did they pour a random amount of both, and discarded it if after that the ratio was not within the 1/3 to 3 limit? Or some other method? That determines the distribution. The distribution of the ratio is more like a derived distribution, derived from the distribution of the wine, the distribution of the water, and how those two distributions depend on each other based on the method used to fill it up.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that "uniform distribution" is hard to define. An even distribution of water/wine values is not the same as an even distribution of wine/water values.

Thinking in terms of possible states, you can choose an even distribution of x from 0 to 1 and define:

water/wine = x/(1-x)

wine/water = (1-x)/x

(which avoids being water-biased or wine-biased)

<comment><USER21> _> water/wine = x/(1-x)

> wine/water = (1-x)/x_

It's symmetrical but not "naturally" uniform. If we consider both quantities as independent and uniformly distributed over [0..1[, then 1:1 ratio becomes much more likely to occur than 1:1000000. I find that approach "the most natural". The probability P(water/wine < 2) is 7/8 in that case.

<comment><USER20> I agree. There are a number of ways to model the process of creating the mixture that will avoid the water vs. wine bias that is the essence of the "paradox" as stated.

The main lesson is that the Principal of Indifference is "not even wrong". (It's nonsense.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science." -Feynman

<comment><USER18> Surely this is more relevant to scientific theories, rather than a logical theory of interpretation of probability?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It seems that, in some ways, a "crank" is not defined by what they believe or say, nor by whether what they believe or say is true, but by the relation between themselves and their society. Had Freud been in a society that treated the idea of the Oedipus complex differently, perhaps he would have become a crank. Some, like Darwin, were too circumspect to become cranks, but plenty of respected scientists, whether their main ideas were right or wrong, were not "cranks" mainly because of the way their peers reacted to them, not because of anything about them, or their ideas.

<comment><USER24> Freud was definitely a crank. People back then just didn't know any better so they never called him on his bs on the spot.

I was interested in psychology in high school trying to understand people around me. I even considered studying psychology. Then somebody gave me Freud to read. The horror I felt when I understood that his "theories" were just the observation of the world but through his deeply disturbed eyes and uniquely bent mind...

After that I decided that I don't want to have anything to do professionally with trade that still haven't properly distanced themselves and apologized for ever considering that this Freud guy had some merit.

Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

Why not António Egas Moniz, the father of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatrics.

<comment><USER25> I know absolutely nothing about psychology except I read some Freud. I don't have any opinions about psychology, or the nature of psychology, or Freud (tbh I'm not that interested either). But I'm not clear why I'm supposed to believe you more than psychology community. See, I'm not trying to be skeptical, I'm just trying to understand who is crank, and you stating Freud crank doesn't seem to make him crank in my eyes. Am I wrong? Why?

<comment><USER24> You are not wrong. You shouldn't believe me over anyone else. I'm just sharing personal experience and opinion.

If you want to form an opinion about Freud please do research what psychological community thinks about him and why. Basically, "he was asking interesting questions and giving wrong answers but we remember and value him for the questions."

> I know absolutely nothing about psychology except I read some Freud.

For me it sounds like "I know absolutely nothing about piloting aircraft except I read some notes of failed inventor that tried to build a flapping wings plane before Wright brothers flew, but noone remembers his name because aviation is not psychology."

Or "I know exactly nothing about solar system except I read some Ptolemy."

If you are interested in Freud, read Freud. If you are interested in psychology read something way more modern.

What I think distasteful is that psychological society didn't distance their trade from Freud enough and in 2018 you were under the impression that reading Freud counts in any way towards learning psychology.

And to address your more general point. How can you know if Freud is the crank or I'm the crank without knowing anything about the subject and without any interest in the subject?

You can't but it's ok since you have no interest. And if you are pressed against the wall you are safer with opinion of majority. Not even majority of psychological community. Just majority of people. Freud was famous so he can't be that bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> your-nanny Just finished reading one of the guys papers. I've read a lot of crack pots, and this guy's paper exhibited none of the typical features (megalomania, nonsequiturs, grandiose claims, complaints about persecution or conspiracies to silence the truth, and. so on). He might be wrong (didn't read carefully enough to reach my own conclusions, and I'm well aware of my own limitations), or he might have gone too far from his own expertise to be taken seriously by the right people, but not a crack pot

</comment><comment><USER26> The basic idea doesn't sound crackpottish. There is only one correct representation of water to wine ratio, and a uniform distribution over all possible arrangements of water and wine would only give a single answer. Sounds like the problem lies in how the principle of insufficient reason is being applied.

<comment><USER27> It strikes me instead as rather trivial.

Burnside's Lemma, a fairly elementary result in group theory / combinatorics, is regularly used to compute probabilities by enumerating symmetries of the system under study. It's not a logical stretch at all to extend this to continuous / infinite-dimensional systems, and I think most theoretical physicists would be aware of this.

<comment><USER26> Very odd that a world renown physicist would be branded a crackpot for making this observation. Why would making the principle of indifference apply to the continuous domain be controversial?

<comment><USER27> Well, we'd have to read what he was showing people to know. Maybe his presentation was deeply obfuscated, or maybe he was saying something slightly more subtle than what I mentioned. I'm just guessing from the hints in the article.

From some googling I did find this: [https://arxiv.org/abs/quant- ph/0310073](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310073)

<comment><USER26> This is an interesting conclusion:

"Probabilities in physics could also be said to be measures of information interpreted within the framework of a physical theory."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So annoying they didn't link to the full articles, in it's various forms.</comment>


Fingerprints to lose relevance? - <AUTHOR> http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=b0ab44c7-1383-4a10-879f-884b7fc53f2e&Headline=Fingerprints+to+lose+relevance <comment><USER2> I don't understand the connections the article is trying to make. It seems to be about improving prescriptions based on metabolic profiling, which makes sense. However, I've never had a doctor take my fingerprints in order to prescribe medicine, and I'd surely walk out with haste if they tried to.

I thought that the point of taking fingerprints was that they are something people can unintentionally leave behind at a crime scene. I don't imagine that many criminals urinate over everything just before they scarper, so I remain clueless as to why fingerprints are mentioned at all.

<comment><USER3> I think it's called "attention grabbing" - the reason they're mentioned is to sell newspapers / gain viewers for the ads.

99% accuracy is not exactly great either.</comment></comment>


The Conscience of a Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=txt Edit: removing Aaron's name from the title. In retrospect I don't feel it's respectful. <comment><USER2> As the author, I've been amazed over the years at how well this resonates with people 25+ years after the fact. I continue to get 2-3 emails a week from people about how it affected them (unfortunately, about half of the emails also ask me to break into something for them).

It is difficult for anyone who didn't live through the BBS years to understand the feeling of no longer being isolated and alone. I strongly recommend Jason Scott's documentary 'BBS' (in which I'm interviewed) for a glimpse at a bygone era.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for writing this Loyd. It made an impression on me when I was younger and I re-read it fairly often. I recall (with slight embarrassment) translating it into French for an assignment whilst at school (we had to translate an article/story we liked). I don't think the teacher was very impressed with my choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hate that the majority (I assume) here on HN didn't get to cut their teeth in the BBS era, you really missed out.

I see comments below mentioning "breaking into computer systems" -- you have to realize this was an era pre-Google, pre-www, in a lot of people's cases, pre-Usenet even. We were often limited to 60 minutes of access daily to a BBS, fighting busy signals to even get a node. Using every minute of that time to download textfiles, download cool stuff from the demo scene (sometimes with the pleasure of compiling them with TASM). We didn't have Linux boxes piled up in the back, to learn and explore Unix, many, like myself, had to fire up a war dialer, find a system, and use those crazy textfiles we read from our local BBS to work our way around. It wasn't, in most cases, for nefarious means -- it was our only option.

It was a great, great era. Hard to understand if you weren't there. Do yourself a favor and check out a few old boards that are still available through telnet. It's not the same, but you'll get an idea.

(I guess this response officially puts me in the "get off my lawn" club!)

<comment><USER5> Couldn't agree more... it was the frontier days.

I grew up in rural Texas about :45 minutes away from Houston. I ran a BSS for my neighborhood around the time of Duke Nukem 3D. We traded our custom maps over it, and coordinated our bamboo fort building plans for the summer so our parents didn't know where it was located.

We also got our hands on the anarchist cookbook and remember Hacker Manifesto being circulated everywhere. And a time when aliases matured into leetness like .oOo. Silicon Toad .oOo.

Then we got our first taste of mass internet with AOL, visual basic war proggies, and IRC scripts like teardrop.c and port attacks on Windows 95... and it's been downhill ever since. :)

Oh the memories...

<comment><USER4> Silicon Toad! Completely forget about that name. Lots of fun groups back then, actually writing interesting code instead of useless antics likes DDoS and website defacement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can tell already this won't be a popular sentiment around here. Also, I want to preface this by saying I wasn't around in bbs era, and maybe my reaction would be different if I had been.

But this kind of irks me: "...ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?"

Did the author ever take a look behind the eyes of the people whose systems he was breaking into and wonder why they didn't react well to having their privacy violated?

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but what I get out of it is "I'm smarter than you, so I'm entitled to do whatever I want." And I get that the author was treated poorly in school, and he has my sympathy for that (I was too). But that attitude of entitled superiority is dangerous. It can and has been used to justify really awful things. I don't think this manifesto should be lionized.

<comment><USER7> It's a valid point. I have a confession though: I was a teenage hacker (in the cracking sense). I suspect many people around here were.

I didn't break stuff or steal stuff _on purpose_ , or have explicit malicious intent. I practiced what is sometimes called "catch and release" hacking. It was a game... to me at least. I'm sure it was an annoyance to the ones on the other end, but I was 14-15 and wasn't thinking like that.

But boy did I ever learn a lot. By the time I made it to college, I knew more than a lot of the CS seniors. So much that I didn't bother majoring in CS. I wanted to learn something else. At 18 I knew: C, C++, 80x86 assembler, shell script, Perl, how to compose and validate an IP packet, the OSI networking model, basic protocol design, peer to peer protocol design concepts, and quite a bit about cryptography including how to properly construct an authenticated cryptographic envelope and the importance of choosing the right block cipher mode of operation. Password cracking led me to hash functions and SALTs, which led me down the rabbit hole, and I got fascinated with crypto. At one point I worked through the math of Diffie-Hellman and RSA. It was very hard stuff, and required that I delve into a lot of deep math that was way beyond me at 15 going on 16. But knowing it made me more of a badass hacker ninja. Cause it was crypto, and crypto was big time hacker stuff. When I comprehended the one- way trap door function behind Diffie-Hellman I felt like I'd stolen a car and gone joyriding with the archetypal cool kids.

More than that, I found that my knowledge was more hands-on than the CS students I encountered. I not only thought in code, but thought in networks. To this day networking and network protocols are completely natural to me, while otherwise very good programmers tend to gnash their teeth at the thought of implementing them. Also, for some reason this network experience translated right into multithreaded coding. Working with threads, even at a low level, with all the blocking and priority inversion issues, is no sweat. Network hacking made me comfortable with non-determinism.

I highly doubt I'd know this without the challenge of hacking (sense 2).

But wait, you say... why don't we just create a corewar-style game? Why can't schools have Defcon-style attack/defend tournaments.

I wouldn't have touched this with a ten foot pole. No rebellion, no interest. That would have been an "organized activity" put forward by adults. Blech.

Honestly, a similar ethos got me interested in startups much later. Startups sort of felt rebellious in a way... like little scrappy hack-trepreneurs sticking it to the big guys. It was when startups popped their shirt collars and went all douchey and "mainstream" that I lost interest.

<comment><USER2> I like the phrase 'catch and release.' We always worked from the philosophy of 'do no harm.' I can certainly see the top poster's side of things -- there are a lot of issues that I feel much differently about as a near-50-year-old than I did as a teenager. For what it's worth, I was never trying to provide moral authority for hacking in the perjorative sense when I wrote it, I was just venting...

But you're right, the rebellion was the delicious topping on the technical exploration sundae. By the time I outgrew the illegal portion of things, the technical 'hacking' imperative was firmly established in me, and has continued to this day.

<comment><USER7> Oh sure. I'm sure what I did was incredibly annoying to someone, if not downright dangerous.

I don't know what the solution is though. We've denuded our society of independent ways of knowing accessible to the young: hacking, cracking, dangerous chemistry sets, and so on. On one hand there are "good" reasons for this. On the other hand: where will the next generation of engineers come from if they can't combine learning with individuation?

I really have to underscore this: as a teenager, I had _zero to negative_ interest in anything sanctioned by school or by the adults I was surrounded with. It was by definition lame, constraining, and uninteresting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was written by Loyd Blankenship shortly after his arrest [0].

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_Blankenship>

<comment><USER9> This Wikipedia entry is oddly sparse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember being around 7 or 8 and reading this (and other texts of the times in question) and being inspired by the inherent culture which had at it's simplest reduction an insatiable need to consume knowledge by means of discovery. It inspired me to learn C and tinker with Linux and BSD. It also had a part on a quirky math phase I had - which ended causing my math teachers pain when trying to teach a 13 year old the usual basics ended having to grade exams with the most intricate and elaborate (and long) solutions to simple questions and puzzles.

It inspired me to open up my old Packard Bell branded computer and tinker with it until a soldering iron made it meet it's demise. This series of texts also inspired in me a need to know everything there is about computer security, and of course, the only way to put that knowledge to the test is in real world applications like hacking the school systems to take a peek at que quarterly final exams, compromising machines to use as botnets to do fun stuff in IRC, and of course taking advantage of the "unlimited" bandwidth available to the school. Thankfully the school took this as a rebellious kid/teen learning as much as possible about computers and systems and ending up giving me the task to secure their network and physical machines, to the dismay of the actual computer administrators in school.

I bet that this type of reading material inspired an army of people just like me to tinker, hack, and learn as much as possible. Aaron Swartz was probably one of them - being only three years younger than me, and probably one of the most influential in this harsh times for both hackers and activists. Now hopefully his person and his work will become part of the inspiration for future generations, the same way this text by "The Mentor" was for my generation.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a shame that the old computing culture is dead. VX scene, demoscene, crack scene, ... Everything that used to be interesting for the curious is dead.

Now we have... web development and "front end engineering" and "value creation" which rule the game. It really pisses me off that I care about none of these. I care for technical superiority with scarce resources, but today no such domains exist really. Really depressing.

<comment><USER12> Mmmh, sorta. Mobile development often lets you work bare-metal with scarce resources, especially in the world of game consoles. One of my favorite experiences in high school was developing homebrew games for the PSP and experimenting with homebrew on the GBA. Right now I'm reverse-engineering an NES game from 1992 just for the hell of it (god it's fun).

Hardware hacking is still around, there's just so many other options that it can get lost in the noise.

<comment><USER13> Yah, even though that scene is growing smaller by the year, the 6502/2A03 ASM geeks are still crunching away... looking for extra space inside NES Rom's to cram some new, cool feature their favorite games would benefit from. Did a little in the mid-00's, was a great time and taught me how a microprocessor works.

So fret not! A good old-school time can still be had in this modern age of new-fangled-front-end-engineers!! (of which I am one)

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To me, this is one of the founding texts of our sub-culture.

No, I didn't know or interact with Aaron Swartz, but his plight reminded me of this manifesto.

<comment><USER14> Really? I think the hacker news community is more focused around node.js than it is around unauthorised access to computer systems. I do agree there is a common theme of the joy of discovery, but I find it hard to cheer on people breaking into computer systems.

<comment><USER15> _I think the hacker news community is more focused around node.js_

Ugh, do you have to remind me? The community here is becoming so risk averse I can't fathom how they expect to hack by any definition. The Manifesto was from an era when the hardware you owned was practically a useless toy, and learning about computers almost required sneaking some time. The well off were able to take it more legitimately from their institutions at night, but what about everyone else? And what about systems that even the well off couldn't play with? Jobs was adamant that Apple never would have existed without him and Woz cutting their teeth blue boxing (a crime which sadly in modern times would be labeled terrorism, with extradition from anywhere in the world). How far ahead of the game do you really think you can get when you're asking permission at every step? Just don't be malicious.

<comment><USER16> > The Manifesto was from an era when the hardware you owned was practically a > useless toy,

I'd argue that's what we're moving _towards_.

<comment><USER15> Hur, indie programmer humor. People who think that are idiots. We live in a time when you can buy a computer the size of your hand that can do real time image analysis on a couple of AA batteries for $40. A couple decades ago that would be a classified munition with the assumption that one would build a better guided missile from it. Just because that computer in your pocket is polished doesn't mean it's a toy. A toy is a remote terminal incapable of executing machine code outside of drawing letters on the screen. Or a computer that only can remember 16,000 numbers at a time (that's not enough enough space for a crappy, unanimated GIF). Remember War Games, when he cracked open the handset of a payphone and made a free call by touching a soda can tab between the microphone and a ground wire? That was the level of technology not so long ago. Try writing your RoR craigslist knockoff using that.

Kids these days.

<comment><USER2> ^this++

One of the arguments I make _against_ black hat hacking when I answer emails to (mostly) kids is that there is _soooo_ much available you can do to fulfill your wildest geeky dreams. I'm around 90% sure that, were I growing up now, I would have eschewed cracking and instead be hip deep in some nerdvana corner of the maker universe, wiring cats up for spaceflight or something similar.

<comment><USER15> So much of cultural is contextual, and on closer inspection the hero and villan are rarely who you thought they were. I saw your manifesto a long time ago, in a small town far, far away, and it played some part in making a bankers son want to be a hacker. Thanks for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side."

-Goethe

</comment><comment><USER18> I remember being 13 and having this up on my wall... really good to be reminded of it again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think we tend to forget our history (since tech evolves so fast).

For me, I originally had this on the BBS I hosted as a teenager. And it was something important to me as an out-of-place teenager at the end of the world in NZ - the thought that we live in a borderless community of like-minded people.

What's interesting to me is this disconnect between our world (borderless, egalitarian, where information wants to be free) and reality (legal jurisdiction, protective business models). It was a problem then, it's a problem now, and future conflict is certain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Makes you wonder what _Hacker News_ has to do with any of these words well said.

<comment><USER20> I think it has a lot to do with these words and the sentiment behind them. The childen of that era (like the author) have grown up, and through their experiences and determination helped to shape a world where we can learn, explore, develop, interact and hack on things, like they did, but in a more tolerant and willing (and less illegal) environment. Many of the stories on HN focus the problems with education, big corps and the authorities (the stories about Aaron Swartz encapsulate all of these), particularly with regards to people like HN readers. Its a different world to that story, but the issues are still relevant.

<comment><USER21> Hm.

It makes _me_ think of civil disobedience. And it makes me wonder: hackers today are used to tinkering with machines, whereas earlier hackers often worked with people. It feels like we lost something there. So many hackers today look at the world and The System and say, "It's too hard. Let's not try."

<comment><USER22> >whereas earlier hackers often worked with people.

There's a book detailing the rise of hacker culture. There's a bit about hackers 'borrowing' tools from someone. The contempt they showed that man, and his tools, shows that working with people was even then not a skill that all of them had.

<comment><USER23> It sounds like you are referring to "Hackers" by Steven Levy. It's a great book and that's a great story. I've posted it here:

<http://frammish.org/used_up.html>

<comment><USER24> I only read this book last year, but it really is a cracking read

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> AKA the teenager manifesto. Sorry but the feeling of superiority that many hackers have is their biggest weakness. You are not a beautiful butterfly that nobody comprehends. Everybody else is not less intelligent than you, no wonder hackers are always in the wrong side of the police boot. You better start working fast.

</comment><comment><USER26> The problem with writings like this is that they murky the waters between curiosity , creativity and doing stuff that is actually illegal.

Nobody is going to arrest you for "curiosity" but they might arrest you for bank tampering because somebody might you know have their life savings in there.

<comment><USER27> I assure you, these people were not interested in your life savings. Having never met the author of this piece, I can still confidently say that he and everyone else in that culture, then and now, would have opposed anyone hacking to raid some poor bystander's bank account.

It's this sort of fear mongering that got us here.

<comment><USER2> Well, that's not _strictly_ true. I know at least a couple of folks from that era who would pilfer a bank account in a heartbeat, given the opportunity (they tended to be active 'carders'). They were, however, treated with disdain by 99% of the 'exploratory' hackers I knew.

The catalyst for me getting out of the black hat side (other than aging out of the 'being bad is fun' stage) was getting into a massive system from which I could have easily pilfered millions. Thoughts of everything from "set up Swiss bank account, fill up" to "offer to 'consult' with the company in question to fix the holes" went through my head. In the end, I just said "game over, I won," stopped cracking systems, and put up the Phoenix Project BBS as a center of learning. Which lasted until the Secret Service showed up at my door in 1990...

<comment><USER27> I'm not saying none of them existed, just that isn't what this culture was about. As you said, such types were unwelcome in the community, and I'm pretty sure that isn't what your manifesto was about (but correct me if I'm wrong).

<comment><USER2> No, you're right. I just don't want to see it painted in a fairy dust of nostalgia. There were some real criminals involved, and I'm sure there were many who nobody ever knew played both sides. There were plenty of guys that were good enough at hiding their True Name that they could have been anyone. Not just random dudes on a bbs, but folks I "knew" with serious technical skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Commie bullshit.

<comment><USER29> For the benefit of those who don't get the joke: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMX7JFSJDsY&t=490](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMX7JFSJDsY&t=490)

<comment><USER30> The sickest joke is that Youtube is still running with that on it and MegaUpload is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Written on the year Aaron Swartz was born. Very poignant.

</comment><comment><USER32> And to think I could have whored some karma if I had created a thread instead of a simple comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5051486>

</comment><comment><USER33> That was written 2 years before I was born.

Hard to tell how to judge that text if you didn't experience that time.

If someone wrote that today, I'd think that he'd be a hypocrite. But I am sure the situation was different in 1986.

<comment><USER34> It is as relevant, if not more relevant today than when it was written.

<comment><USER33> Could you tell me why you think that it is?

<comment><USER34> Because in todays legal climate most of the things that were 'gray' back then are forbidden explicitly now. Things that as a kid in my days you'd be receiving a stern talking to for will now cause you to go to jail for very long periods in addition to likely resulting in you filing for bankruptcy.

<comment><USER2> Also, remember that back then it was _way_ harder to get caught. We did stuff like wardial entire area codes with impunity. The general lack of awareness/focus on computer security combined with non-digital phone switches (oh crossbar, how I loved thee) made it much less risky.

<comment><USER34> Just one little anecdote for old times' sake. I used a sequential dialer to scan for interesting numbers in the country capital. After hitting one particular number the phone to which the modem was connected rang. This was before the days of anr indicating that whoever backtracked that number in less than a minute had quite a bit of pull. The guy on the other side asked me what we were doing calling that particular number. The phone actually felt hot in my hand and I realized: _Busted_. So on the spur of the moment I said I was trying to connect to a bbs and he said 'don't call this number again' and hung up. I was still shaking an hour later.

<comment><USER2> My attitude (and that of most of my contemporaries) was that hacking government computers (in our own country at least) was a Damn Stupid idea.

A corporation will make an ROI decision about pursuing someone. Is it worth their time and money and hassle to pursue, or should they just change the admin password to something other than "secret123" and forget about it.

The government, on the other hand, has whole branches of people with nothing better to do than follow up on this kind of thing, and they aren't motivated by 'profit.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> HN needs a "pin" feature, so this can be top all the time.

</comment><comment><USER36> Classic. Anyone interested in this era should check out "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling.

</comment><comment><USER37> I read this to my 10th grade English class back in 1999, people loved it.

</comment><comment><USER38> after all, we are all alike</comment>


Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/491/

<comment><USER2> It was really upsetting how few people got that comic when it came out. I loved it.

edit: (ref: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_shave#Roadside_billboards>)</comment>


Climate change activists are focused on all the wrong solutions - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2019/10/12/climate-change-activists-are-focused-on-all-the-wrong-solutions/ <comment><USER2> > Solving climate change, in fact, requires getting China, India and all the > other developing countries on board to cut emissions. But of course, their > goal is to lift their populations out of poverty with cheap and reliable > energy. How do we square that?

This is the money point in the article. It's difficult to see how we can successfully combat climate change if it means rolling back advances in eradication of poverty. [0] We need technical solutions that work without requiring everyone to be a saint.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty)

</comment><comment><USER3> I read this article as "Because there are challenges with proposed solutions, because none of the solutions themselves will solve climate change, best not to work on it at all".

That's like a general at the start of WWII looking at the stockpile of armaments and saying "Best not fight the Nazis. There's probably more of them than we have bombs in this pile."

Yes, the article nods to innovation at the end, but pooh-poohs the idea that we need to change anything to get there. The best fuel for innovation in energy generation is to clear the marketplace of the incumbent fossil fuel behomeths. Tax them, pressure them, restrict their growth - the green energy innovators will quickly grow to fill the gaps. This can be done anywhere, everywhere.</comment>


Facebook flooded with 'sextortion' and revenge porn, files reveal - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/22/facebook-flooded-with-sextortion-and-revenge-porn-files-reveal <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14388102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14388102)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a female friend last month whose ex-bf created a fake account and proceeded to set the profile and public photos and videos of them (having sex). He then went ahead and started sending friend requests to her entire family and friends. I felt so bad for her - it was awful enough to make her even have suicide thoughts.

What really surprised me was how horrible the FB system to report stuff like this is. It is basically non-existant. If this thing takes 1 month to be reviewed, that is 1 (eternal) month where the damage can be irreversible.

what is worse is that FB has posts about how they are "fighting" this without having any instructions or obvious process defined to report this. So you "report inappropriate content" and the report goes to a black hole while the perpetrator continues with their shenanigans. They dont even need to create a new acct, because they can keep going without the offending account getting blocked.

Something else is that the non-profit foundations that exist to fight this (the ones that will send legal take-down notices) are US-centric. This means that if you are from a latin american country and you face this (as was this particular case), you are screwed.

Yes obviously the lesson is not to take pics like that in the first place, but sadly a lot of the victims may not be that computer savvy or mature enough to realize what a mistake those things can be.

<comment><USER4> This guy is in the videos as well, right? Could she somehow strike back harder and demolish his reputation? Tell his friends and family, and his employer, what he did to her? Who the hell would send a video of themselves having sex with someone to that person's family?

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately, in a lot of cultures and environments today (where culture is not only your global, national, or regional culture, but also the culture that you choose to surround yourself with), this kind of thing is much more devastating for women than for men.

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying that the existence of porn is supposed to hurt his reputation. I'm saying the fact that he would violate somebody in this way should hurt his reputation. The porn is just evidence of his doing this. I'm in no way trying to diminish this lady's situation. On the contrary, it makes me angry and I would want to see this guy see some serious consequences for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "54,000 potential cases... and 33 of the cases reviewed involved children."

That's 0.06% of reviewed cases, which is frankly less than I would have thought. I suspect that child abusers are a more savvy lot than the average chucklehead who does something like this.

<comment><USER7> I'd imagine that the low hanging fruits are picked off by law enforcement pretty quickly.

<comment><USER8> While others drag on for decades with establishment involvement - the U.K. being the current but not first example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's disappointing, but not super surprising.

Shit like this is why I'd never want to operate a site with a large user base that can freely upload content. Sure you could probably afford the servers for awhile with minimal monetization, but could you pay for even a half-dozen policy experts to moderate the content to a point where you don't send your largest potential audiences running screaming for the hills?

</comment><comment><USER10> I am surprised their system for catching bad content is only user reports/flags.

While revenge porn and stuff is bad, there are a number of known child related incidents.

So if a private group of scumbags, are posting stuff to a private group, noone will know unless someone within reports.

Who needs the darkweb when u can have a private Facebook group?

Edit: as per replies below, they do use image recognition aswell for I guess known content lists

<comment><USER11> They also use image recognition to detect nudity and previously classified child porn.

<comment><USER12> No, they use Magic Number among a bunch of various tricks. You can't really call it image recognition, more like 'data-hash comparison.' To train true image recognition would require a LARGE subset of stored illegal pornography.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by "Magic Number" in this context?

<comment><USER14> It's in the file format

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_signatures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_signatures)

Also check out "libmagic"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some problems run deeper than their individual manifestations such as these for which one may propose techie solutions -- here, sex ed is the only permanent solution. It's time to find ways to explain to boys that sex is an ordinary way to have fun and/or connect romantically between adult people, rather than a source or arena of power or status as it is endlessly portrayed in media.

<comment><USER16> Sex and power/status are inextricably linked for much of society.

<comment><USER17> Society implies culture thus construct whereas this feature is observed in much (all?) of animal kingdom as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >and the challenges for moderators, who say they are overwhelmed by the volume of work, which means they often have "just 10 seconds" to make a decision.

Maybe Facebook should just hire more moderators? I know they'd love to totally relegate this to some awesome NLP algorithm but we're not there yet. Facebook makes more than enough money to bring on some more employees (and clean up their guidelines).

EDIT: oops, had two articles from the guardian on FB up and referenced the wrong one.

<comment><USER19> "Maybe Facebook should just hire more moderators? I know they'd love to totally relegate this to some awesome NLP algorithm but we're not there yet. Facebook makes more than enough money to bring on some more employees (and clean up their guidelines)."

There are systems that can detect porn pretty reliably. Helping moderators spot any porn more quickly will also let them spot revenge porn more quickly. Any correct or false positives can be fed back into detection systems. It might still take more moderators, though. Facebook needs more anyway given the size of user base and money available for moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Facebook disabling 14,000 accounts in a single month because of that kind of terrible behavior does show this is a serious problem. But it's still a very rare problem. Given Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly users, that's on the order of 1 in 100,000 accounts.

<comment><USER21> That seems high to me. We should strive for this to be so rare that it's news- worthy when it happens at all.

<comment><USER22> Well, it's really just an extension of gossip, blame, scandal and shaming that has been around forever. There would need to be a major social change first. Otherwise, even the perfect tech solution would just force this bullshit to move somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Somebody check my math:

Facebook has 1.13 billion dailies, and 1,800 potential daily revenge porn incidents: 1 in 627,777. Involving children, about 1 per day.. 1 in 1.13 billion?

Is flooded the right word to describe that? It actually seems pretty low to me.

</comment><comment><USER24> So _The Guardian_ puts this article up just as May's government is promising to tighten government restrictions on social media. That was convenient.

<comment><USER25> The Guardian isn't a right-wing paper, it's left of center, and I can't remember when it last endorsed the tories. You'd be far more likely to see that kind of thing from The Telegraph or The Daily Mail.

There's another explanation much closer to home which doesn't involve Theresa May: The Guardian, like many other newspapers, is under intense pressure from Facebook which is eroding their direct traffic in favor of traffic coming from FB. They literally compete against each other for clicks and ad traffic.

<comment><USER24> Sure, but the timing is suspicious. The editors at _The Guardian_ aren't above giving a Tory proposal a little push if it's in their interest. Besides, Labour is proposing essentially the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They should have a verification process for accounts beyond verifying an email address. Verify identity, it's way too easy for people to be impersonated, there's a whole TV show dedicated to this...

<comment><USER27> You need a phone number to register a new Facebook account...

<comment><USER28> They're free with Google Voice

<comment><USER27> I don't think Google Voice will work for that nor will a Trello number. I saw someone complaining on HN that their landline didn't even work.

<comment><USER29> Burner phone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yea, someone tried doing this whole 'sextortion' thing to me on FB.

I laughed at them. I used to work in porn, you think you're showing people something they haven't seen (let alone probably want to see again since I 'retired' [AKA got married?])

Sad that shameless people such as myself seem to be immune to this kind of thing. Perhaps everyone should have a career in porn just to eliminate this issue.

Give me a break.</comment>


Secure Voice Calls: Now with Threema Work - <AUTHOR> https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/secure-voice-calls-now-with-threema-work <comment><AUTHOR> Now you can also make secure voice calls with Threema, the secure chatting app.

[Disclaimer: I feel like I should make a little bit free advertisement for this chatting (and now phone) app, which originated from Switzerland. It has >3 MM installs in German speaking countries and I am a happy user. It has little recognition in the English speaking world. Unfortunately]</comment>